Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/24

 always been man to man, and I wasn't appealed to. So far it has been all Rafferty. It's easier to get a new foreman than a new shop crew, so I haven't interfered."

"I don't understand," said Holman blankly.

The super laughed shortly. "Rafferty has the men where he wants them. If he got on his ear he could tie us up so quick we wouldn't know what happened. A nice thing for me to admit, isn't it? But it's so. I suppose I should have nipped the whole business in the bud, but I kept on hoping that each new man would beat Rafferty at his own game. Has he got you going, too?"

Holman gathered up the repair reports from his desk and started for the door. "Game's young yet," he flung over his shoulder as he went out.

From the office Holman walked up the yard to the spur tracks at the end of the shops where three or four engines were waiting their turn for an empty pit. He glanced at their numbers, comparing them with the papers he held in his hand, then turned and walked back, pausing on the way to inspect an engine, bright and clean as fresh paint and gold leaf would make her, that had been hauled out of the shops that morning. He passed in through the upper doors to the fitting-shop. Already another engine had been shunted in to replace the one that had gone out. Her guard-plates, links, cross-heads, main and connecting rods were lying on the floor beside her, and the labor gang were jacking and blocking her up preparatory to running the wheels out from underneath her.